There is a lot going on in my life.  After four years of wanting to move, I am selling my house.  In fact,  by the day’s end I will have likely accepted an offer on my house.  Wow.  This is big stuff.  I know that a lot of people would be stressed and or excited about the prospect of selling and buying a new home; but, I’m not.  I am neither overly stressed about selling and I am not particularly excited looking at potential homes.   I am a whole bunch of nothing.  N-o-t-h-i-n-g.  Zilch.

Somehow, I feel strangely and inappropriately disconnected from the entire process.  Like so many times in the last 4.3 years, I am sort of catatonic.  I feel a vast emotional void.  Where there should be something.  Anything…  There is just nothing.

I am going about the motions and I feel completely disengaged from the task of selling my house.  I am not wrought with emotions, I am ready to sell.  It is way past time I leave this house and this town.  I am emotionally ready to go…  Yet, I am strangely unattached to the outcome.  I just don’t care.  I know that this should be exciting.  And, it isn’t completely dull; but, it is not definitely not making me giddy.  I feel like selling my home is merely a job to be done.  A task that I finally can attend to.  It is just one of the many things I have been forced to do because life did not turn out the way I imagined.  So, here I am doing it…

I think this distinct lack of emotional response and my obvious lack of enthusiasm stems from the trauma of outliving the person I love.  I just know that all this material stuff is fleeting – so none of it really matters to me.  It is just a house.  It is just stuff.  I know full well that a house will not particularly change my life.  So, I am appropriately flatlined about the whole endeavour.

I don’t feel like I am invested in the house sale the way a “regular” person would be.  And, I notice that I am only mildly attached to the purchase of anything.  I can’t help it.  I earnestly don’t really give a fuck; therefore, I can’t manufacture the “appropriate” level of excitement or engagement that one would expect given the task.  I think many grievers find that their emotional responses do not correspond with the situation. It is what it is.

It seems since Mike died, my heart rate has slowed to almost zero beats per minute.  And, most days, and in most situations, my pulse is barely detectable because I simply am not connected to anything going on around me.  I feel otherworldly in so many ways that I have lost count.  This move is really emphasizing the lack of grounding I have to everything.   I am not sure what I make of this, but it has caused me to pause.

This is said, it is not lost on me that I am fortunate to be in the position to purchase a lovely new home.  I get it.  I am living a good life – even without him.  Still, none of this success makes me feel overjoyed or happy.  But, the good news is that I am not particularly sad either.  I am simply sort of ambivalent about everything in my life and frankly this feels extremely unsettling.

 

Buying the house with Mike was exciting because it symbolize the beginning.  Our future was bright.  We were to be married in the backyard of the new home we were purchasing together.  Our families were blending together and everything was falling into place – until it all imploded when he died.  *Sigh.

This time buying feels different.  It feels like I am attempting to fix a wrongdoing.

The wrongdoing being Mike’s death…  Moving is a big step in the direction of righting my alternate life.  It is forward motion.  It is acknowledgement of the permanence of his death.  It is necessary and it is a good thing.  This move is about me.  It is my decision.  My choice.  My sale.  My purchase.  It is about my family and our future.  And, I should be excited about it.  And, I sort of am.  I am just not altogether overjoyed.  I am a bit blaise and this should not surprise me because I have been operating in apathy for 4.3 years now.  The move just really brings into focus how deep this indifference is embedded in my psyche.

I feel like his death has eighty-sixed me from life.  And, slowly, over the years, I began to resuscitate myself.  I think that once I finally find my new home I will take my first deep breath since Mike died.  It sure will be nice to take more than shallow breaths.

 

~Staci